02/24/2011

In my former life, as an attorney who represented plaintiffs in medical negligence cases, I was a very busy associate. I never lacked for files that needed attention, and rarely had the time, or inclination to take on pro bono cases. I did not generate income to the firm by billable hours; my files were contingent fee cases. So, I needed to resolve cases - move them towards settlement or trial - in order to justify my existance.

Then, in my transition to a probate practice, and at the "prior firm," my income was based on billable hours, but the fees needed to be collected in order for me to get paid. Some months, I got paid once, some months not at all. I really lacked the time to become involved in pro bono work.

Things as a sole practioner are a bit different. I know that my practice is in its infancy, and that I need to find useful things to do as I generate clients and new business. So, I have taken on pro bono work. I have joined committees in local bar associations.

AND, not surprisingly, I see the benefits in doing both. Helping someone and not charging a fee makes me humble. Becoming active in the bar association committees makes me proud to be an attorney. Again, humbling.

While I don't often engage in hindsight, I really do wish that I had made the time to become active in the practice of law by taking on pro bono work earlier in my career, and I REALLY wish that I had taken advantage of the legal community opportunities avoided by membership and involvement in the bar associations. Because, it is good to be humbled and to appreciate what it means to be an attorney.

02/19/2011

It's slightly funny to think that I have a usual routine, being in month five of my new practice as a sole practitioner, but I do somewhat have a "usual." I usually practice in the Circuit Court of Cook County, where the courthouse is located 1 1/2 blocks from my office. Most of the estates that I open, and most of the guardianships are filed in this courthouse.

I do, on occasion, travel to Will County, Lake County, DuPage County and Kane County, but less frequently. Probably less than 10% of my practice is located outside of Cook County.

Recently, however, I was contacted by a family law attorney (aka divorce attorney) who represents a second wife with a prenuptial agreement, who was named as a respondent in a citation to discover assets in her deceased husband's estate. The estate is pending in Lee County, Illinois, with the courthouse located in the town of Dixon, Illinois - 103.5 miles west of Chicago.

When he initially asked me if I traveled outside of Cook County, I didn't hesitate. Sure, why not. It sounded like an interesting case, and clearly within my specialty - a contested decedent's estate.

Given that Dixon is the birthplace of President Ronald Reagan, I knew that it would have some historic charm, and I was hopeful that I would be visiting one of the older, stately courthouses.

It turned out not to be the case - the historic courthouse, built in 1901, has been replaced with a modern court building, where the jail, probation offices, circuit court, and veteran affairs offices are all located. Nice, but not as impressive as the historic building.

My court hearing took a bit longer than expected, so I didn't really have time to investigate the town of Dixon, which is right on the Rock River - although I certainly did sense some history. There were definitely numerous references to President Reagan, which was not unexpected.

Leaving my house at 6:00 a.m. in order to arrive in Dixon for a 9:00 a.m. hearing - not so much fun, but it felt good to step out of my usual routine. Thank goodness for Audible......I'm listening to Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

02/17/2011

A niche law practice is a creature of the new economy affecting small and mid-size law firms. In this new economy, I believe that you need to distinguish yourself - you need to offer specialized legal services to a specific niche of the general population. I have given this some thought, having developed a niche content-based website some years ago - (Her-Motorcycle.com - under new ownership as of October, 2008) I learned what a content-based website, with search-engine optimization, can expect in terms of traffic. I monetized the site and actually did experience monthly income from google and affiliate relationships. But, I am an attorney, not a website owner, and the daily attention to the site began to affect my practice - so I sold the site and moved on, back to the full time practice of law.

But, in my speciality of probate law, I did see a few definite niche areas - and quite recently, I launched another website, this one devoted to providing legal services to the baby boomer generation, of which I am a member. As my generation ages, we are dealing with numerous issues:

aging parents, often in need of guardianships, medicaid planning

estate planning

retirement planning

LLC's, FLP's

Starting a non-profit corporation

Powers of attorneys for health care and property

asset protection

estate planning for civil-union couples

So, I launched Chicago Boomer Law - and will, over the course of the next few months, steadily add content-based pages to the site, hopefully attracting traffic from searches seeking information on the topics above, and other issues which hinge on the legal services I provide.

This website is a different creature, in that in addition to providing information, I am also seeking to persuade new clients to contact me - to hire me for the purpose of providing legal services. It will be interesting to watch the results of this niche law practice endeavor as a marketing tool. Stay tuned.

02/15/2011

The weather in Chicago has improved immeasurably from two weeks ago, when the "Great Blizzard of 2011" hit, dumping over 2o inches of snow in less than 24 hours. The blizzard did not discriminate, stopping city and suburban traffic, CTA and Metra trains and buses. Beautiful Lake Shore Drive became a parking lot, with drivers stranded in their vehicles, some in excess of 10 hours.

Not surprisingly, controversy and criticisms abounded following the blizzard.

From my perspective, as a relatively new sole practitioner, I lost a day of productive work. The blizzard began tuesday mid-day, and the city of Chicago - "the city that works," emptied out early, with commuters flooding the train stations to head out to the suburbs, and city-dwellers hitting the street to motor home. Those who left early enough, made it home safely. Those who delayed - or left at the normal end-of-day, were met with trains delays and closed streets.

My extremely overly-optimistic husband believed that we would be coming to the office, as usual, on Wednesday - one day post Blizzard. I snickered.

We left at 3:20 p.m., and arrived at our home, which is exactly 3.2 miles from our office, one-hour and forty minutes later. Having gone to the grocery the day prior to the Blizzard, we had plenty of supplies on hand, and I was able to cook dinner, feed the dogs, and spend the evening watching my favorite Tuesday television: The Biggest Loser and Parenthood. I could hear the wind blowing outside our house, and actually heard the thunder and saw the lightening. But, we never lost power and I was able to get the dachshunds outside for their potty times prior to bedtime.

I slept like a baby.

The next morning, I got up at my usual time - and found my overly-optimistic husband dressed in his lawyer-clothes on the sofa, looking a bit distressed. "We can't get out of the house," he said. "I can't open the door."

Having two little creatures who are not trained to use indoor plumbing, I was a bit panicked. I opened the side door and encountered a wall of snow. I opened the front door and again encountered snow, but was able to push the door open far enough to at least grant access to the most brave dachshund, Leo. I shoveled a small path down the stairs, and then a small patch on the front sidewalk, and the dachshunds accomplished their mission.

BUT, we were not going to the office on this Wednesday.

We were able to get out of our garage by 3:00 p.m., but the neighborhood streets were not manageable for the remainder of the day. We spent the day lounging, watching bad TV and news reports about the effects of the blizzard.

We went to the office at the usual time on Thursday. But, the mail was delayed, the Circuit Court of Cook County was closed for two days, and the legal community ground to a halt.

I thought back to the days when I was a salaried associate at a thriving law firm - this "free day" would have been welcomed. But as a sole practitioner, I lost an opportunity to create billable hours, to find new clients and to move my current clients forward.

The whole experience made me nervous. It took a few days, if not a week, for the pace to return to normal. Mail service took longer - receivables that should have been deposited by the end of the week, were not even received until the end of the following week.

The thaw is currently ongoing - and I am relieved that the "Great Blizzard of 2011" is history.

02/10/2011

One of the members of one of the bar associations posted this little news story today - I had to share it in blawgland...........

Former attorney Timothy F. Eddy was disbarred in 2002, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to practice law.

The 46-year-old Burbank man took on the identity of a former lawyer he once worked with and continued to represent clients in court, DuPage County prosecutors said.

Eddy on Tuesday was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty in DuPage County to a felony charge of impersonating an attorney.

He pleaded guilty on Monday to a similar charge and received the same sentence in Will County, where he also had represented clients.

Eddy was licensed to practice law in 1989, but he was disbarred in January 2002 after being accused of taking funds from a debt collection service where he worked, prosecutors said.

But even after losing his law license, Eddy appeared in court using the name of a lawyer he had worked with at that business, said DuPage County prosecutor Helen Kapas-Erdman.

“He used a former co-worker’s identity,’’ Kapas-Erdman said.

Eddy barricaded his door and tried to flee last July when DuPage County state’s attorney investigators and Burbank police moved in to arrest him, authorities said.

He cut a hole through his apartment wall with a butcher knife, escaped into a vacant adjoining apartment, then jumped off a second floor balcony and ran, DuPage County officials said. He was captured — sweaty and shirtless — a short distance from his apartment.

02/08/2011

I recently added a page to my firm's website in response to the passage of the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Unions Act - (geez, where did they get that combination?), and with the use of sitemeter, I have been able to watch the various searches that land the searcher on my page.. Somewhat cool to see that, but I am also pleased to see that same sex couples who have recently been afforded rather necessary and just spousal rights are investigating what they can, or should do, in terms of estate planning.

01/27/2011

I AM the IT department. Really. Not a role that I particularly wanted to take on, but I'm managing.

In the prior firm, we actually had an IT guy who worked elsewhere, but had the ability to connect to the system remotely and fix any emergencies. He was also the person who configured new computers and printers, and just generally kept the whole computer system going. I liked knowing that the IT guy really knew he was doing, and kept me from having to know anything.

But, I've always been the troubleshooter for my husband's computer system - primarily because we really got suckered by an outside IT company a few years back. Thousands and thousands of dollars were paid to this company for services that I knew I could provide. So, I took it on, albeit reluctantly.

I learned how to fix the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH, or how to call Dell and have a CPU under warranty replaced.

I learned about the importance of an anti-virus program, and keeping the hard drive defragmented. I learned about rebooting the server - hell, I learned what a server is.

I knew how to install new drivers for printers, how to update software, and how to configure Outlook email.

I am also the IT department in our home, where I spent a weekend (48 hours straight) putting together a wireless network.

But, being the IT department in my new firm has been challenging - mainly because I've been highly challenged by dated technology.

Being low on financial resources (and not having the ability to be bank-financed as a start-up practice) I needed to utilize an older computer system (dated back to 2003) for the first few months while I collected fees and opened a firm bank account. This computer was state-of-art back in 2003, but sorely inadequate in 2010. REPEAT: INADEQUATE for 2010.

But, I had to make it work, so I removed what programs and applications I didn't need, added a portable hard drive for saving my files and soldiered on. It sucked. If I walked away from the computer for 20 minutes, it would go into a hibernation or sleep mode, and would require 30 - 45 minutes to "wake up" again --- Interestingly, this inability to wake would take longest on Monday morning. I changed the settings over and over and over again, but the senior computer obviously needed its sleep.

This week the 2003 computer was finally replaced, temporarily, with a new Toshiba laptop, with 4G memory, and a 500 GB hard drive. It's life changing. No more sleeping, no more hibernating, without the ability to wake. Complete with Office 2010, I have entered the modern computer age.

The laptop is a temporary solution to the sleepy 2003 system, and so now I am shopping for a new desktop. More on that in my next post.

01/26/2011

Turning down business - touchy subject for a relatively new sole practitioner. Today I said "NO" to the first client referred to me by one of the bar association lawyer referral services of which I am a member.

Actually, she was the very FIRST client referred to me by the lawyer referral service; the first file that my new firm opened.

Four months into the relationship, however, we still had accomplished nothing. Factually not all that complicated: Adult sibling of the decedent, a disabled Vietnam veteran, who had purchased his own home, and utilized VA benefits to pay off most of the mortgage. The real estate, however, is located in a not-so-desired "location," built on a flood plane, and currently with a flooded basement. Homeowner's insurance cancelled due to multiple claims.

Additionally, the decedent died, intestate, leaving multiple credit card and personal debts and TEN heirs at law - all waiting to cash in on the assets of their brother,or uncle, who owned a house.

I wanted to help this family. I really did. One of my client's brothers made it to the courthouse first, and filed a Petition for Letters Testamentary, appointing himself as Independent Executor of the Estate. My client wanted to act, and so I filed a Cross-Petition seeking to appoint her as Independent Executor. Absent an agreement, the court would hold a hearing on the petitions, to consider evidence on who, among the siblings of the decedent, should act.

In excess of fifteen hours of billable time later, we have no agreement. We have no administrator; we have no insurance on the house; we have no assets and more than abundant debt. We have multiple heirs and relatives of heirs who attend each court status, and need to discuss what will happen before court, and then what happened after court ---- in great detail. Nothing gets accomplished.

This client and this file wakes me up at night. I worry about the fact that this house may never sell, given the current market and the location in which it is located. I worry about the claims that will be filed. I worry about the fact that these heirs will NEVER agree. And at the end of my worrying, I worry about the time that I expend, the expenses that I front, and the attorney's fees that I will never be paid.

In the middle of one of these sleepless nights, I realize: I can say NO. While I feel that my client needs representation, and I would like to feel that I would be the one to help, I cannot. My young practice lacks the resources needed to administer an estate with limited assets, abundant debt and heirs who will probably never agree.

My saying NO was empowering yet at the same time, disconcerting. I made a decision based on my prediction that I would not be paid for my time, and that I would expend much time on behalf of this client. I made a business decision.

Turning down business as a new sole practitioner feels wrong. I need clients; I need to be handling new matters. Economically, however, I need to make decisions wisely.

I hope to sleep tonight, but I fear that I will wake in the middle of the night, worried about the client that I told NO.

01/18/2011

On Divine Intervention: As I have posted previously, I didn't have six months in which to prepare to hang up my shingle and start my solo law practice. I was offered an affordable office and needed to snap it up - which I did.

What I needed to in order to get started:

A Desk

Office chair

File cabinets

Letterhead, 2nd page letter, labels, envelopes, SASE envelopes

Phone service - and a telephone number

Website - email compatible with Outlook

DSL or high-speed internet access

Billing software

System for storing files

File folders for client matters

A Bank account

Checks

Certification from the Illinois Supreme Court

Business cards

Articles of Organization

Computer

Printer

Fax machine

I could probably add more to this list, but I think this represents the bare necessities for starting a sole practice. Given my husband's close proximity, I was able to "borrow" some basic office supplies in the very beginning, but I had to arrange the phone, internet, website and email.

As for office furniture, this is where I believe I got some divine intervention - One of the secretaries in the suite approached me and asked if I wanted to buy some file cabinets - in great condition, for $75 dollars a piece. Really? I had priced these and knew that for the 5-drawer cabinets, I would be expending $800 a cabinet, minimally.

Do the math: $800 x 2 = $1600 - $150 = SAVINGS of $1450.

And no shipping cost - the secretary arranged for some attorneys to deliver them and install them in my office. Viola - storage for files for years to come.

My desk was free - a gift from the suite office manager who had it in storage.

My office chair is an old secretarial chair - (soon to be replaced)

Today I purchased a corner L-shaped computer desk from Office Depot - final cost after coupon, $165.43. I'm pretty sure it will be life-changing, just like the close-to-free file cabinets.

Since my office is small and windowless, I needed more space to spread out when working on more than file at a time (normal). I was looking at more expensive options, and then saw this one - the cherry wood matches my free desk, and the glass top won't overwhelm my smaller space.

And oh-so-affordable.

For those of you out there in blogland who fear that taking the plunge and going solo is just too expensive - think of me, and pray for a little divine intervention and cheap (if not free) office furniture.

01/14/2011

On having a "web" presence: I am beginning to think that it is a necessity for an attorney who is starting out as a sole practitioner. My website for my practice has been in the works before I left my prior firm. When I called to establish phone service, I also inquired into webhosting and DSL service, and registered the domain name the next day.

Then I hired a graphic designer (who also teaches yoga, and is moving to Thailand to live on a beach and teach) for the purpose of styling my site. I wanted my website to be content-based, so I needed the ability to add pages - easily. She's a big fan of WordPress, and after an upgrade in my hosting package, she got to work. About a week later, after some tweaking - I could google myself and there it was. The beginning of my new web presence.

In the first few weeks after the physical move from the prior firm, while waiting for my files to be transferred, and while waiting for the phone to ring, I added content-based pages to the site. Fortunately, there is seemingly an unlimited range of topics within the specialty of probate law from which to pick for content. It's like writing a treatise, for lay people, one short page at a time.

Now, four months later, I am beginning to see the results. I installed sitemeter on my website, and now I can see how my readers get to my site. Amazingly, some actually arrive on one of my pages by googling a probate issue - like Illinois Power of Attorney, or dying without a will. I've also noticed that current clients have been visiting, and landing on more than one page during each visit.

Having a content-based web presence does mean that I may get visitors to my site who are outside of my jurisdiction, and thus, may not become clients. On the other hand, it is a place where I can refer my clients for information.

And just yesterday, I was retained by a client who lives in Europe, but is a beneficiary in a decedent's estate in Cook County. There is no doubt that I would not have been found by her, but for my web presence. Way cool................